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To Rich, I talked to a scout recently who had that exact conversation with Bissonnette. The scout asked if he thought he really needed to fight every game. Bissonnnette said yes. It's easy to see why he thinks that. Fighting is what punched his ticket to The Show. Why stop now? Also, Bissonnette told me he feels like he's still learning the fight game, and the best way to learn is by doing.

As for Pesonen, I think it's too early to write him off completely as a possible contributor in Pittsburgh. We're not even two months into the season. Life may not be fair for Pesonen right now. This weekend, he was faced with the very difficult task of making an impression in six or seven minutes of ice time. But that's life for a player trying to break into the NHL. Doors are opened for certain high-profile prospects. Everyone else has to knock that door down.

To puchead, I find the Wallace-Taffe-Minard line interesting too. I guess the theory is that two skill players need a crasher and banger on their line. Fair enough. Keep this in mind as well: Dan Bylsma has been very pleased with how Wallace has been playing lately. This might be a bit of a reward for that.

Thanks to everybody who's been contributing in the comment section since we switched over to the new blog. It's been good conversation. I've been trying to moderate as frequently as I can.

The Penguins looked like they might be getting their act back together through two periods. Aided by some shaky Karri Ramo goaltending, they took a 3-1 lead on goals by Mark Letestu, Luca Caputi and Joey Mormina. Then they looked like they'd never had a third-period lead before. They were outshot 19-4 and lost 4-3 in overtime. Early in the season, we wondered what would happen when the Chris Minard/Jeff Taffe top-line combination started scoring like human beings again. This is what happens. This team looks just a shade better than terrible right now.

It's hard to get much more specific than that when you're watching on the Internet. A too-many-men penalty on the Pens early in the period started the momentum swing in Norfolk's favor. The bottom line is the Penguins didn't come close to matching the Ads' intensity. I would think that might be a cause for some alarm.

Look for Alecia's comments after the Friday Post-Game entry. She seemed to agree with the bad third period theme.

One guy I thought had a good weekend was Caputi. He's playing feistier now. That's only going to help him in the long run.

Also, during a goalmouth scrum, Zenon Konopka took a drink out of Adam Berkhoel's water bottle. I don't think I've ever seen that before. What do you do if you're a Penguins defenseman in that situation? Do you take great offense? I mean, it's not, on its face, a terribly offensive act. The guy just took a drink of water. It's not like he put his lips on the bottle or spat it at someone. I think you just call him a name and move on to the faceoff. What would you do?

After the Pittsburgh game, I was talking to my little brother and he gave me the old "This team should be so much better on the power play with all the talent it has" business. Talking about tarring and feathering Mike Yeo and whatnot. You get the picture. Many of you have probably heard it too.

Anyway, it prompted me to look up some stats. I figure the 1980s Edmonton Oilers are the most "talented" team in recent NHL history. Here is their power-play success rate, in relation to the league average, before Gretzky got traded.

Here is Pittsburgh's power-play success rate, in relation to the league average, since Therrien/Yeo took over. (I included the Edzo/Therrien year.)

05-06 +1.3106-07 +2.7207-08 +2.8608-09 -0.49Average +1.60

So what can we conclude? First of all, Pittsburgh's power play is struggling this year. The absence of Gonchar and Whitney, I figure, is taking its toll. Second, and most importantly, look at those Edmonton stats. They lead me to believe it's reasonable to expect a talented team to outperform the league average, yes, but not dramatically so.

In summary, I'd say my brother does not have realistic expecations for how successful Pittsburgh's power play should be. Any argument he makes that starts with that premise is flawed and ignorant of the statistical facts.

The Penguins aren't going to send the tape of this game to the AHL hall of fame. It wasn't pretty. They got some bounces and beat Norfolk 4-3. But after back-to-back terrible losses, I guess they'll take what they can get.

Connor James scored two goals. The first was a shorthanded 2-on-1 with Dustin Jeffrey. For the year, James has four shorthanded goals and Jeffery has four shorthanded assists. They're tied for the league lead in scorthanded scoring with five points. I wrote a story for Sunday's paper about how the Penguins have been scoring a lot on the penalty kill and why that is. The answer, I'm becoming more and more convinced, is Jeffrey. The kid knows how to play the angles on the PK.

James' second goal was an example of the bounces I'm talking about. Norfolk's Daryl Boyce lost his stick on the play. leaving James open to take a shot. Jeff Taffe's goal, the one that turned out to be the game winner after Brandon Bochenski scored in the final minute, came when a Chris Minard shot bounced perfectly off the end boards. I guess you make your own luck, but saying the Penguins are out of the woods because they won this game would be foolish.

To Alecia, thanks for checking in from Norfolk. That's one of my favorite road trips. I always stay in Virginia Beach. You can get hotel rooms there offseason for pennies (I'll never be accused of not watching the Times-Shamrock bottom line) and I always find something peaceful about a beach town in the fall or winter. Enough about me, Dave Gove didn't play tonight due to illness. He's due back in the lineup tomorrow. And please share your thoughts in the comment section if you have time. It's always good to read a first-hand perspective.

Anyway, you'd be tempted to sit Gove for a game or two to try to get his scoring touch back on track, but the Penguins are thin in the center and veteran departments, so it's probably best to keep him in the lineup.

Had a chance to check out the third period of the Pittsburgh game after the WBS game ended. The parent Pens stunk in the third period. John Curry had to make three ridiculous glove saves just to keep them in it.

Weird night for Janne Pesonen. Max Talbot played, so Pittsburgh scratched Ruslan Fedotenko to make room in the lineup, which indicated that Pesonen was going to play a prominent role. He did not, seeing 6:02 of ice time. If the plan is to ease in a guy playing his second NHL game, then I guess it makes sense. If the plan is to just play the guy six minutes, Pittsburgh would have been better off calling up James or Minard.

Finally, ever wonder what happened to Nada Surf? Yeah, me neither, but you come across some weird stuff when you're googling for AHL news. (There is AHL news, sort of, at the end of that story.)

They don't have Thanksgiving in Finland, but this link says Finnish turnip casserole is a must for any holiday meal. Regardless, Janne Pesonen had something to celebrate when he was called up to Pittsburgh today. Since Max Talbot was pulling top-line-winger minutes when he got hurt, you have to figure that's where Pesonen will be slotted. This will be a great test to see how he handles that kind of role.

To nafs, I don't have a timetable for Boogaard, but he was in skates at practice on Tuesday, so it's safe to say he's getting closer. Frankly, though, it might be hard for him to get back in the lineup with Bissonnette back. On Wednesday, Filewich, Letestu and Daoust were healthy scratches. One of them gets back in the lineup with Pesonen up, but that's still leaves two decent players in the press box.

Thanks, eric, for the fight link. That Engelland-Szwez encounter was pretty hard hitting.

As for me, I'm thankful tonight to have Rob Bironas and Brian Westbrook on my fantasy team.

We have extraordinarily early holiday deadlines, so some papers might have an early version of the game story. That's why I posted the later version of the gamer, with a couple comments from captain and coach (it was a captain and coach kind of night) here on the blog. Just scroll down for it.

We were talking the other day about the loss in Cleveland on Sunday being the worst of the season for the Penguins. This equalled or surpassed that. They got outshot 45-26, gave up two shorthanded goals and generally stunk. Even Ben Lovejoy got abused a couple times by Phantoms forwards, and that doesn't usually happen.

I think the most interesting thing about the next few days will be seeing how Dan Bylsma handles his first stretch of really poor performances. He has a practice scheduled for 10 a.m. tomorrow, so that probably gives some kind of clue. Read his quotes in the gamer and see what you think.

Meanwhile, we were sitting the press box tonight, watching this clunker, thinking how it would be so much more interesting to write the John Curry story tonight on the Island. He came in with Pittsburgh down 3-0, making his first regular-season NHL appearance, stopped all 11 shots he faced and watched as Evgeni Malkin scored three times (and perhaps more remarkably, Brooks Orpik had a goal and an assist) to give the parent Pens a 5-3 win. There was a good read on Curry in the Pittsburgh Trib today. Check it out.

Also, Max Talbot apparently hurt his foot in the game. He's been playing on the wing lately, so I would assume the Minard/Pesonen watch is on. Connor James has been playing pretty well lately, so he's a darkhorse candidate. Luca Caputi too, but that's a real darkhorse given how the organization seems to be bringing him along slowly. Bissonnette has five fights in six games since coming down. Maybe he's the answer. Anyway, more on that if it develops.

Some interesting doings on the AHL scoreboard tonight. Hershey lost half its team to call-up — Bourque, Mink, Alzner and Lepisto — and beat Binghamton 4-1 anyway. Oscar Osala had two goals to run his total to 15, just one back of Chris Minard. Binghamton last lost on 16 straight trips to the Giant Center. Also, if I told you Springfield went 3-for-11 on the power play in Norfolk tonight, who would you guess was the ref? Good guess.

I've got the Thanksgiving night desk shift tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll be able to check comments then if there's anything you want to discuss. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving all.

Jared Ross and Darroll Powe scored shorthanded goals as the Philadelphia Phantoms smoked the home team 4-1 Wednesday night at the Wachovia Arena.

The Penguins (10-9-0-1) reached the 20-game mark just one shootout-loss point above .500, tied with Binghamton for the fourth and final playoff spot in the East Division.

“Tonight was probably our worst game of the year,” captain Dave Gove said. “We didn’t play our game the way we should. We didn’t execute our game plan at all. They showed up to play tonight and we laid an egg.”

The Penguins have lost three in a row for the first time this season, giving Dan Bylsma his first taste of honest-to-goodness adversity as a head coach.Bylsma said he wasn’t sure what tack he would take in addressing Wednesday’s poor performance by the Penguins, but perhaps the fact that the team has a practice scheduled for 10 a.m. Thanksgiving morning gives a glimpse into his plan.

“Largely we’ve been operating under the assumption that we’re a good team and we haven’t played as well as we can,” Bylsma said. “Right now, I think we’re waiting to be a good team instead of going out and playing hard-nosed gritty hockey.”

It’s one thing for a team to struggle on the power play. That happens every night in the AHL. What the Penguins did with the man-advantage Wednesday, however, was unusually ineffective.

Not only did they go 0-for-7, they also saw the Phantoms score a pair of shorthanded goals, one of which was of the Keystone Kops variety.

With 2:30 left in the first period, Ross skated down the right wing on a 2-on-1 break, waited for sliding defenseman Ben Lovejoy to pass him by and beat goalie Adam Berkhoel with a backhand shot.

It was the first goal allowed by Berkhoel at the Wachovia Arena since an Oct. 17 shootout loss to Bridgeport. Berkhoel pitched three straight shutouts and put together a home scoreless streak that reached 234:20 before Ross scored.

“I think we played well the first couple minutes and that’s about it,” Gove said. “Once they got that first goal, they took over the rest of the game.”

Things would only get worse from there for Berkhoel.

Early in the second period, he strayed from his net and lunged to stop a puck before it reached the goaltender no-touch zone in the corner. The puck eluded Berkhoel, hit the end boards and squirted directly to the crease where Powe tapped it into an empty net.

“The big play was the strange bounce and the second shorthanded goal,” Bylsma said. “That really did deflate us and you saw us get off the page for a while. We never really recovered.”

The Phantoms ran their lead to 3-0 late in the second when Jonathan Matsumoto stickhandled niftily around Lovejoy to set up a David Laliberte goal.

The Penguins tried to mount a comeback in the third. They forced a turnover on the forecheck and pulled within 3-1 when Luca Caputi took a pass from Dustin Jeffrey and slipped a shot between the pads of goalie Scott Munroe at 1:30.

The rally was short lived. Laliberte scored his second goal of the game to make it 4-1 less than six minutes later.

“Giving up (45) shots, odd-man chances in our building and for stretches of that game getting frustrated and getting off the game plan,” Bylsma said. “Certainly things that we have to address and we will address.”

By Jonathan BombulieCitizens' Voice Sports WriterLegendary coach John Brophy hates to lose.That fact was clearly on display Sunday after the Wheeling Nailers dropped a tough 3-2 decision to the Reading Royals in a regular-season East Coast Hockey League game in front of an announced crowd of 4,379 at the First Union Arena.The Nailers led 2-0 midway through the third period before Reading scored two power-play goals to tie it and added an even-strength marker with three minutes left to secure the win."We had the game won tonight," said Brophy, who has 1,003 victories in his 28-year pro coaching career. "They were going nowhere. Then we took penalty after penalty after selfish (expletive) penalty and we lost the game. There's not another (expletive) thing to say about it. We gave the (expletive) thing away with (expletive) selfish penalties."As the final buzzer sounded, Wheeling defenseman J.P. Soucy tripped Reading goalie Scott Fankhouser with his stick. Fankhouser came out of the net to go after Soucy. After gloves were dropped and a few pushes and shoves exchanged, Soucy ended up pummeling Simon Trembley, Reading's top defenseman just back from a stint with the Hershey Bears, in a fight.That got Royals coach David Lohrei hot."The bottom line is our goalie was speared after the whistle and Simon Trembley was jumped," Lohrei said. "He's a pretty good player, and I get a little tired of people taking liberties on him. When I see the other coach enjoying it on the bench, that's where I draw the line."Brophy made his way to the glass separating the team benches and a shouting match with Lohrei ensued. Lohrei said Brophy grabbed Reading center Brad Rooney during the argument."Their coach, whoever the (expletive) he is, that high school coach they got there, he's screaming at me," Brophy said. "I don't know why he's screaming at me. I wasn't (expletive) fighting out there. I didn't (expletive) start it or anything else. Where the (expletive) was I? How the (expletive) am I (expletive) encouraging it? The play was inside their (expletive) blue line."

Anyway, there is a blog in Pittsburgh reporting that the Penguins are shopping Janne Pesonen because they have decided he is a playmaker, not a scorer, and that's not what they need. Rich mentioned this report in the comment section and I've received a couple emails about it. It's true that Pesonen looks, to me anyway, like more of a passer than a shooter. But the blog goes on to report that a number of teams have been stepping up their scouting efforts of the WBS Pens to get a look at Pesonen. I haven't heard or seen anything to confirm that. The only scouts who have been at recent home games are the ones who are always at games. Frankly, I am skeptical of any report that Pesonen is on the block. If a team really wanted him, they could have just signed him in July. It's not like he was a secret that the Penguins unearthed. He led the Finnish league in scoring, for crying out loud.

Anyone catch the overtime of the Nashville-St. Louis game tonight? Awesome action.

Lots of people are talking about the own goal Ryan O'Byrne scored for/on Montreal last night. I thought I'd share my favorite hockey own goal.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

I have a bunch of stuff to do this afternoon, so I have to run, but I'll update this entry this evening with some odds and ends. I think I'm liking this comment system, by the way. If you're registered, your comment appears automatically. If not, it goes into a queue where I have to approve it or not. Try it out.

Welcome to the new-look blog. Hope you like it. I'll get the blogroll up and running in the next couple of days. The next order of business will be starting that contest where readers can win Penguins tickets.

To TK and KJ, I'm not suggesting people need to be fired or bag skated or sent to Wheeling. I just think it was a very winnable game. As for bad bounces, Lake Erie goals 2 and 3 were a little unlucky. And you're right. The non-call on the Pesonen high-stick was the worst break of them all. But you make your breaks, right? Goals 1 and 4 were bad defense.

And to penfaninmd, great news. I finally got through on the Dr. Pepper web site with about 15 minutes to spare. Thanks for the heads up.

A winner of first-place honors in the blogging category of the 2012 Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors awards, Penguins Insider was created to give local hockey fans an interactive, in-depth way to follow the team they so passionately support. The blog's author, beat writer Jonathan Bombulie, has been covering the team since its inception in 1999. Contact him at jbombulie@aol.com

Visit the WBS Penguins page at citizensvoice.com for Penguins stories, photos and more.